I first wrote about charter schools just over a year ago. At the time I was commenting on statements that such schools would be able to employ as teachers people who lacked teaching qualifications, wondering how that could sit with the Minister’s statements around achieving quality teaching practice. But I also noted concerns that charter (oops, ‘partnership’) schools could set their own curricula, as this would have the potential to expand the number of schools teaching creationism in their ‘science’ classes.

Well, now the list of the first 5 charter schools has been published: two of those schools is described (in the linked article) as intending to “emphasise Christian values in its teaching.” By itself that =/= creationism in the classroom – but yesterday Radio New Zealand’s Checkpoint program (17 September 2013) reported that the school’s offerings will probably include just that.

In addition the prinicipal has reportedly said that the school will teach “Christian theory on the origin of the planet.”

The Education Minister has conceded there’s nothing to prevent two of New Zealand’s first charter schools teaching creationism alongside the national curriculum.

Two of the five publicly-funded private schools, Rise Up and South Auckland Middle School, have contracts that allow a Christian focus.

The minister, Hekia Parata, said on Tuesday that none of the five schools would teach creationism alongside or instead of evolutionary theory.

But on Thursday she told the House two of the schools will offer religious education alongside the curriculum.

Ms Parata did not specify how the two would be differentiated in the classroom.

South Auckland Middle School has told Radio New Zealand it plans to teach a number of theories about the origins of life, including intelligent design and evolution.

Point 1 (trivial, perhaps?): South Auckland Middle School needs to look into just what constitutes a theory in science. (Hint: a theory is a coherent explanation for a large body of facts. “A designer diddit” does not remotely approach that.)

Point 2 (not trivial at all): Why do people responsible for leading education in this country think it acceptable for students to learn nonscience in ‘science’ classes? After all, the Prime Minister has commented on “the importance of science to this country.” Evolution underpins all of modern biology so how, exactly, does actively misinforming students about this core concept prepare those who want to work in biology later? Nor does teaching pseudoscience sit well with the increased emphasis on ‘nature of science’ in the NZ Curriculum.

This is really, really disappointing. We already have ‘special character’ schools which teach creationism in their classrooms (see here, here and here, for example). It’s irking in the extreme that state funding will be used to support the same in the new charter schools.